Archive for July, 2010

Source: International Communist Current When the LibDems and the Tories agreed on a coalition the French newspaper Le Monde quaintly described it as “A marriage of reason at 10 Downing Street” and a triumph for “British fair play.” In reality, for all the horse-trading and manoeuvring that went on behind the scenes, and despite all […]

Austerity regimes like that gradually being reinforced in Britain are being imposed across Europe. The continuing strikes and demonstrations in Greece have been the most dramatic expression of a working class response, but they are only the most high-profile examples.

As of this writing, the hunger strikers camped out in Mexico City’s main plaza are up to Day 86 of their protest, and deteriorating health has led many of them to abandon the encampment. With little sign the government is interested in negotiating, it remains to be seen if the hunger strikers will get any resolution of their demands, or if one or more of them will die in their frustrated efforts.

The neighborhood committees of El Alto, formerly a bastion of the MAS Party,are following a tendency to differeniate from from MAS government, with the knowledge that the MAS government has defrauded their illusions and betrayed the struggle to regain the hydrocarbon industry, that it is another goverrnment that is selling the nation, repudiate the government and proclaims its independence from that government.

Source: International Communist Current- What a difference a few months make! Gone is the self-assuring message of a better future for capitalism that dominated the news on the economy in the bourgeois media at the end of 2009. Today there is increasing talk of bad days to come. It would seem that the celebrated ‘green […]

This article on the Deepwater Horizon disaster was written about one month ago. The time elapsed has not brought the relief and solution to the resulting greatest ecological disaster in the history of the US, which the ruling class had promised. Instead, it has sadly confirmed the premise of the article: capitalism in its death throes cannot offer any perspective to humanity and the planet. In fact, the longer the oil continues to gush, the clearer the bankruptcy of the system becomes.

A devastating fire broke out in Stephen Court House in the heart of Kolkata in the afternoon of 23rd March, 2010. It has been reported that the fire started from a lift and spread in no time to the whole fourth floor of the huge seven storey building and turned it into an inferno. The fire spread to other top floors also.

The cartoon in the morning left daily La Jornada
summed up the July 4th Super Sunday election here: two citizens are picking
their way through the debris of the balloting in which a dozen governorships
were up for grabs. “Which cartel did you vote for?” one asks the other.

The latest budget was a very significant step in making the working class pay for the crisis. And it has been announced with great care to delay, divide and divert any resistance to it. This was chancellor George Osborne’s “unavoidable budget”, necessary to pay “the debts of a failed past… The richest paying the most […]

As imperialist sanctions are stepped up, leaders of Iran’s ‘opposition’ are in headlong retreat. Yassamine Mather reports on the anniversary of the 2009 rigged elections

Demonstrations were held across Iran on the June 12 anniversary of last year’s rigged presidential elections – despite a heavy security presence and the cowardly back-stabbing of the so-called ‘reformist opposition’.

Meanwhile, the much heralded United Nations resolution on further sanctions against Iran – expanding the arms embargo and barring the country from sensitive activities such as uranium mining – was voted through on June 9. The UN measures present a diluted version of what the US administration had proposed, but they still allow high-seas inspections of vessels believed to be ferrying banned items to Iran, while 40 categories have been added to the list of people and groups subject to travel restrictions and financial sanctions. The European Union has promised to impose its own extra measures, targeting the energy, trade and transport sectors.